Carameltrail Reviews 13

We worked with Carameltrail for custom design a tour of Portugal for 4 people, and in short summary they excelled our expectations. We visited several cities including Porto, Evora, Coimbra, Fatima, Algarve province, and Lisbon. They took care of all the details of the trip to include airport transfers, hotels, gastronomy and tour guides. We basically flew into the country and they took care of the land portion of the trip. They remained in constant communication during the trip and answered all questions promptly. All of their tour guides and car/van drivers were professional and were able to communicate in English (and in Spanish also), and also to give us good tips about local activities and restaurants. Several experiences were tailored made for our trip, such as hiking through a vineyard in the Duoro region, a gastronomic tour of Porto, and a nice Sunday drive through the beaches of Algarve, among others. Our driver was excellent and made suggestions on the spot for our lunches, dinners, spots for sightseeing and photography.

The trip was a surprise to my wife and it turned out magical due to Caramel Trail’s team, especially Angela. She listened closely and in turn created/curated an itinerary that brought many memorable experiences to the both of us over a 10 day period. From the outstanding guides to the special locations and beautiful hotels, everything exceeded our expectations!

Willing to accommodate what we wished to do.
Constant communication before and during our tour.

Caramel trail planned some fantastic outings and was available 24/7 throughout our entire trip to assist with questions, problems, recommendations, etc. We made a trip to a beautiful winery outside of Sam Sebastian which absolutely fantastic. We also visited a family owned sheep farm in France, which was worth the drive.

This trip was exceptional from start to finish. Every detail felt intentional, especially the hotel selections. Each one was spot-on and elevated the entire experience.

The sheep farm in southern France was a standout. Peaceful, authentic, and something I’ll remember for a long time. It added a completely different dimension to the trip that you just don’t get from typical itineraries.

The visit to the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao was pure magic. It’s one of those places that lives up to the hype and then some—absolutely not to be missed.
And the hike was incredible. Beautiful, energizing, and the perfect balance to everything else.

This was a thoughtfully curated, seamless experience.

CarmelTravel made this a memorable trip and tailored exactly to our needs. They delivered a full concierge experience and ensured we were well taken care of at every step of the way. Daily communication was done to make sure our needs were always met.

Our family's experience was 5 star right from the first contact. Angela was quick to reply, listened intently to what we were looking for, and came up with an itinerary perfect for each member of the family. Once we were on vacation, Angela and Paloma kept the personalized experience coming by checking in, giving us on-the-spot recommendations, and helping us pivot if we so chose. They even helped my husband procure his most sought after souvenir despite store closures for Holy Week. Every guide and restaurant we visited had nothing but amazing things to say about Caramel Trail and we couldn't agree more! We cannot wait to return to Spain and work with them again. Spain is magical, but Caramel Trail really brought it to life for us!

Samuel and Paloma create dream vacations and they curated an amazing trip for us. Every detail is thought of.

Amazing, amazing, amazing.....We traveled to Spain to explore the roots of our family lineage and placed our trust in the Carameltrail team. Angela was amazing to work with while we planned the trip and her local expertise was instrumental in developing a customized trip that met our desires while addressing our limitations with some of our group having slight mobility issues. We looked at several agencies and choose Carameltrail for the personalized attention we were given in the process, you can sense good people with how you are treated and Angela was so easy to deal with and personable, we could not have made a better choice. Upon arrival and getting introduced to their local team lead Paloma, all of our expectations were surpassed. Everyone we interacted with, the drivers, hotel staff, and the personal guides were simply amazing. Our wine guides Diego in La Rioja and David in Barcelona were exceptional, truly highlights of the trip. Our guide in San Sebastian, Augustin was the best part of the trip - his knowledge, attention, personality and how he catered to our parents needs was outstanding. We highly recommend the team at Carameltrail for your Spanish adventures.

Carameltrail did a great job listening to our preferences and goals. We experienced wonderful hotels, excellent local tour guides, interesting excursions, and wonderful, professional drivers throughout our tour. They also provided suggestions for restaurants and things to do on our own, and these were very helpful and enjoyable as well. Everything was seamless, and help was always available if we needed it, but everything was planned so well, we did not need any help. Would definitely recommend this company and will use them again!

From the very beginning in our conversations with Angela, we felt a confidence that she was tuned in to the type of trip we were looking for. As we got into the details she listened and tailored a wonderful trip that was quite complex, visiting five locations in Spain over 6 days and 4 different locations in Morocco over 6 days. Every driver was timely and all connections to internal flights were well planned. At the end of each day, Angela and her colleague Paloma communicated the timing of tours and pick up schedules for the following day. The many guides that they arranged over 14 days were all fabulous and very knowledgeable.

Portugal is a fantastic destination, a remarkably diverse country with its enormous variety of different ecosystems, historic and prehistoric sites, superb food, opportunities for adventure, and friendly welcoming people in a relatively small area that is easy to get around.

This was our second trip planned and arranged by Angela and Paloma, our Carameltrail team. They did such an outstanding job for us on our trip to Spain that naturally we chose to work with them on our trip to Portugal.

They came up with a fantastic itinerary for our 23-day trip, which included Lisbon, the Algarve, Évora, Marvão, Coimbra, Pinhao on the Douro River, Porto, Madeira and finally Lisbon again. The itinerary included not only several diverse guided tours and prepaid experiences, but also useful recommendations for places to go and sites to see on our own as well as restaurants.

There were no transportation hassles ever, because they arranged reliable transportation to and from airports plus a rental car for our cross-country trip starting in Lisbon and ending in Porto. The one time we had trouble finding our driver at an airport, we called Paloma and she immediately got us connected. And when we got notice at 3:30 am that our early morning flight home would be delayed, I never expected prompt service at that hour, but Paloma instantly responded to my text message and worked with our driver to try to delay our ride to the airport.

We had excellent guides for city walking tours in Lisbon, Porto, Évora (including a cork factory); Coimbra (with special attention to the oldest university in Europe and its stunning Joanina Library); the megalith route outside Évora; a driver guide in the Douro Valley; a guided hiking tour in Madeira; a circuit driving around the western side of Madeira; a day at fascinating Sintra and Cascais; a sunset sailboat ride on the Tagus River in Lisbon and a rabelo boat ride in Pinhão. Following their suggestions, we explored other sites along our route, including but not limited to Béja, Lamego, Lagos, Tavira, Faro, Cabo da Roca, Monsaraz, Estremoz, Tomar, Guimarães.

One highlight among many was the thrilling boat ride out of Portimão to see the sea caves which they booked for us. There are probably over a dozen sea cave boat tour companies in the area, and they managed to find us one that maximized the experience as we requested. It took us on a more comprehensive tour that included many sea caves and actually got us inside the caves on a rollicking sea.

In fact, a strong point of Carameltrail is their willingness to work with clients like us, who do some independent research and have wide ranging interests. They were always attentive and responsive to us, and patient with our requests to refine our travel plans.

The hotels they booked for us were generally excellent, particularly Hotel Albergaria in Évora, Hotel Pousada Marvão (although it was an enormous hassle finding it with GPS in that medieval town), Hotel Quinta das Lagrimas in Coimbra, Vintage House in Pinhão, Hotel Pestana Carlton Madeira and the perfect finisher, Hotel Casa Balthazar in Lisbon. (The only hotel that fell short of expectations was the Hotel Pestana Alvor South Beach in the Algarve, which had a terrific location and wonderful staff but was surprisingly funky for a supposed 4-star.)

On our own, we would have spent countless hours trying to organize the trip without the benefit of our Carameltrail team’s knowledge, and we would never have been able to get such great results. They have deep knowledge of both the famous and off-the-beaten trail locations, and the best local guides and services available in each location. They listen well and consider the client’s preferences, abilities and interests, to tailor a unique trip best suited to each client. And then they support the client when weather or other circumstances develop that require adjustments along the way. We would definitely use their services again, and highly recommend them!

Angela and Paloma were fantastic in planning an amazing vacation. We told them what experience we wanted to have in Spain and Portugal and they crafted an itinerary that met all of our needs. They picked hotels that were centrally located, had all the amenities my wife and I required and picked tours that met our lifestyle.